Israel's police, fire brigades and press intentionally hushed up an Arab arson offensive that took place while fires raged on the Carmel last week, a reporter for Ma'ariv Hebrewdaily claimes.

According to Kalman Libeskind, sources in the Police and within the Fire Commission said - in briefings that were not for attribution - that they decided not to spread the information about the arson "so as not to wake into action more potential terrorists." The press became "willing accompices" in this hush-up effort.

Libeskind lists the locations of about 25 arson attacks that the fire brigades fought in the course of last week:

In Kiryat Shemona

In southern Golan

Twice near Tzfat (Safed)

Several times in a grove that separates Abu Ghosh and Kiryat Anavim near Jerusalem

No less than eighteen acts of arson were recorded last month in the Forest of Peace, Libeskind notes.

"This is a true Intifadah [uprising - ed.] that had to be the top headline of any news report," Libeskind wrote. "The media consumers need to know that the story they have been getting is not the true one. The reason is that the Israeli press treats the Arabs of Israel as if they were spoiled children. They can inflict pain, hurl rocks and torch property, but no matter what, journalistic press rooms will still act as if insulting the Arabs is not PC."